Awaiting Arrival
When we walk through airports, each gate has an area around it filled with seating (never quite enough), small tables and charging stations for electronic devices (also never quite enough). Those seated or standing in these areas are all waiting to leave. Wherever they are, some combination of obligations, misfortune (cancelled or rerouted flights), and desires has them waiting to go somewhere else.
Some of us are old enough to remember when gate areas also included people who were waiting for incoming flights to arrive. Before security concerns restricted gate areas to ticketed passengers, we had the ability to meet our colleagues, friends and family when they arrived. We were then able to escort them to transportation and our shared destinations.
We devote a lot of time and energy to waiting. Sometimes we wait to go somewhere or do something. Sometimes we wait for someone or something to arrive. Are you more comfortable waiting for a departure or for an arrival? When do you find yourself particularly restless? Most at peace?
The season of Advent is devoted to awaiting arrival. Not the arrival of friends or family, not the arrival of parties and gatherings, not the arrival of a tree, decorations, gifts and favored meals, though each of those can be wonderful, even joyful. Advent awaits the arrival of Jesus returning as Lord of all. In this way, the four weeks of Advent align with our real-time lives more fully than any other holiday or season in the church year.
Each other season adds something of God in and as Jesus Christ to our lives, something that has the power to draw us closer to Him and to each other. Christmas fully joins God to humanity as Immanuel, “God with us.” Epiphany reveals Jesus to be the light of the world. Lent lives out the tension between the ways of God and those who would and do reject Jesus. Easter celebrates Jesus raised from death, alive and reigning as Savior and Lord. Pentecost renews and expands the reach of the Holy Spirit, and deepens Christian community and service to the world.
These are each and all life-giving, and there is enough in them to sustain us through the beauty and struggle of our lives. But the struggle is real, and sometimes overwhelming. The forces of sin and evil that put Jesus to death are still active and present in the world. Jesus’s work is completed, but not yet finished. He has promised to return and reign over all without opposition. We need not depart for this; we need only await his arrival. Until that day, we celebrate Advent.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Don Wink